


The Snowstorm Complication

by luxuria



Category: Not Quite A Husband - Sherry Thomas
Genre: F/M, Forced Proximity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28146546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxuria/pseuds/luxuria
Summary: Leo accidentally gets the same train to Munich as Bryony, and then it breaks down and they are stuck.
Relationships: Leo Marsden/Bryony Asquith
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Snowstorm Complication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [partypaprika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/partypaprika/gifts).



> With apologies to Agatha Christie. Look, there's a lot a good snowstorm can solve!

_You've planned it wrong this time, Leo._

The platform at Gare Montparnasse was crowded with dark-coated figures hurrying here and there, or waiting uncomfortably laden with luggage, but he didn't think he had been mistaken. She had cut a most distinct figure. Dressed severely, carrying just one trunk, and female and alone. And there had been the posture, which had always said clearly: unassailable.

He felt comparatively laden. As the train's doors opened and the passengers exited, he kept one hand on his belongings and the other hand relaxed at his side, forcing his attention to the train. He hadn't meant to have gotten the same one as she had, but maybe it wasn't her. Maybe years of not seeing Bryony had made him susceptible to seeing her in a similar silhouette. She was moving farther afield, a short visit to London followed by an ever longer stay at an even farther locale - even if he hadn't wanted to know, Callista kept him well-informed and badly-informed both. But he trusted her information on Bryony's next location. 

He gestured to a porter to help him load his trunks into the train and turned his thoughts to his post. A lecturer post to teach undergraduates in Munich was not what he had planned, but the thought of staying in Cambridge made him feel hollow inside, even if the position came available. He had made his peace that he couldn't worry from such a distance and still be happy. Then he realized his thoughts had wandered, and he applied himself to the simple task of finding his compartment, arranging small sundry items so they would be convenient to hand, and waiting for the journey to start.

Except he had been right.

Ensconced in one of the dining car's thickly upholstered chairs, he had been eating a light lunch when he realized that someone had just come to a sudden stop within his sight. Bryony was there, staring at him.

He felt like he could feel every beat of his heart suddenly. Bryony's expression had shifted from a look of horror into her most unreadable one, but she didn't move.

"Bryony." He couldn't bring himself to say, _Miss Asquith_.

"What are you doing here? Are you following me?" Realizing she was standing in the only space to move, she slid into the seat opposite him and put her hands in her lap. Her expression stayed blank.

He put down his fork. "I'm travelling to Munich." He didn't add the rest, wondering if she would ask.

"Did Callista put you up to this?" 

"No, but she sends her regards. She is worried you are running away," he said, and then closed his mouth.

"Thank you, Mr Marsden," she said, her voice unnaturally level. She pushed her chair away and left.

But it was impossible to avoid meeting on the journey. The train stopped in Strausbourg, but she didn't disembark, because he saw her in passing, though they didn't speak. They were travelling through snowy, scenic Switzerland, and he sat in the dining car to escape the confines of his sleeper room. 

Despite knowing she was somewhere on the train, he was unprepared for her to show up again in front of him and immediately sit down across from him again. 

She looked faintly angry, but she spoke quite calmly. "Lady Cranley is here."

Leo felt his face twitch. "I thought you didn't care that people knew. It was not a very private affair, our annulment."

She closed her eyes for a moment and said, "She's the most tenacious woman and ridiculously devoted to proprietry. I don't wish to be pestered this entire trip by her badgering me about our annulment."

"So you will come sit with me instead?"

"You know when to shut up, she doesn't," said Bryony. She looked out the window at the landscape, which had been blanketed in a thick coat of snow. It had snowed all day and while the sun was now going down, making a grey day a greyer evening, the storm hadn't abated.

Leo took the hint and went back to his book, but he found his attention wandering immediately. He'd packed the text because he'd thought the journey would give him uninterrupted time to absorb some of the new paradox being circulated by Russell, but it wouldn't hold his attention. He stopped absorbing the words and looking at what he could see of Bryony from his posture. The suit jacket was tailored but completely devoid of ornament; the skirt was the same dark and unadorned cloth. Her hands, now folded neatly on the table, were slightly reddened and dry from antiseptic and washing - no lady's hands, to be treated that way. 

There was a sudden, sharp rending sound, and the carriage shuddered violently. For a heart stopping moment Leo thought they would derail, and he reached across the table to take Bryony's wrist. Where was safest? But before he could make a fool of himself flinging them under the table or out the window, the train began precipitously losing momentum, brakes screeching, smashing him into the table's edge, but the shuddering became less forceful. Items that had been thrown loose slid about. Then they stopped.

Leo removed his hand. Bryony gave him only the quickest of glances and stood up, checking for injured passengers, he thought suddenly. There was a huge hubbub of cries and talking, French and English and German and others beside, as the passengers all tried to find out what had happened.

"I'll go see if I can find a conductor," said Leo quietly, and when she nodded he began making his way to the engine car. He looked back and saw that she was crouched next to a prone man.

"Some sort of mechanical issue," he said when he had found her again. "We won't be moving for awhile, and the snow outside is going to complicate any help's arrival. And there are several sleeper carriages which have been damaged and can't be slept in tonight."

Bryony nodded. She was knelt on the carpet, bandaging up an elderly matron's shoulder, which had been nicked by a flying object, and her face was turned away from him. He could only see the smooth, pale skin of her nape and the dark hair still neatly tied back. Her voice was also calm - when was the last time he had heard her audibly ruffled? The composure had drawn him in even when he only knew her as the contained little girl who lived on the next estate. "We're fortunate there aren't any serious injuries, then. The furniture was secured to the floor here." Then she focused on her work.

Once she had finished with the matron, she turned his attention to him, almost reluctantly. "You haven't been hurt?" 

"I'm fine."

Bryony nodded again, her hands dropping to her sides. "This will increase our journey's time." But she didn't grimace, just said it as though it was fact, and he felt just a little warmer. After so two years, every moment felt like a gift. It was a start. 

"Nothing for it," he said, hoping he sounded light about it. He held out his hand, and after a moment, she took it and got to her feet. 

*

The next time he saw Bryony, she was muffled in a winter coat and gloves, reading a periodical by the window in the dining car. To his disappointment, it was a rather crowded place still, and he was obliged to nod and acknowledge various acquaintances, who had also decided to travel on the Continent at the same time. His feet took him in her direction without conscious thought.

"Hello, Leo." 

He accepted the offer and sat down as well, but didn't try to continue the conversation. She tipped the pages closer to the window - the light really was dim with all the falling snow - and opened his own book, having come prepared. This time, he was actually able to absorb some of the contents, and uncapped a pen to start making notations of his own. The muted conversation of the rest of the car made a comfortable curtain of sound around them.

The companiable silence continued until dinner, where they obtained a cold meal of bread and meat from the dining staff, and Leo noticed Bryony didn't take off her gloves to eat.

"Are you cold?" He squashed the urge to take her hand. It was gloved, after all. 

She cut him a wry look and said, "Yes, of course I am. The temperature is dropping steadily and reading a text on local anaesthetics is not strenuous." 

"I'm starting to get chilled, too." He hesitated, then nearly blurted: "The other bed in my carriage car is not occupied. The two of us in the same compartment might be warmer."

He _saw_ her gaze dart quickly at his mouth before making eye contact with him. "Excuse me, Mr Marsden?"

There was no way out but through. "It's going to get even colder," Leo pointed out.

"It is a train carriage that, a day ago, ran on coal," Bryony said, "not a spot in the howling wilderness."

He said, "I saw your compartment. The window's glass is smashed inwards onto everything you own. The wind is cutting directly inside."

She did grimace then. "They should be able to find me another bed."

But it transpired, there were none to be had. And Bryony, who was nothing if stolid in seeing through something that truly couldn't be avoided - he thought - consented to share his compartment. He hunted quickly through his trunks to find something warm for them to use beyond the thin blanket and sheets provided, and emerged with a few flannels, most of which he dumped on Bryony's bed. 

She was standing inside the compartment, door shut, watching him wordlessly. Since the beds were only an arm's length apart, they were practically in each other's faces, but she had contrived to wall herself off behind a facade of observation. She had left her one trunk in her old compartment, to be dealt with later, and Leo wondered if she was determined to roll into her bed fully dressed, perhaps with shoes as well. She politely blew out the lantern as he took off his coat and his jacket and his shoes. But he felt like every nerve ending might be on fire with the thought that Bryony was there, so close. 

"Good night, Bryony."

"Good night."

There was no further conversation, and he drifted off eventually. Bryony made no sound, almost preternaturally still, and eventually the quiet of the night merged into his dream. 

He dreamed he was at the London house he had shared with Bryony, and he had fallen asleep finally with her in his arms, one arm over her torso, the other buried into her hair. Their previous conjugal relations had never ended thus - she had pushed him away, sealing herself from him physically and mentally as soon as her orgasm had subsided. They had never lain together afterwards. But in dream London, the fires were stoked high and he felt warmer than he had in days. Dream Bryony was pliant and soft, and he breathed deeply, trying to fix the moment in his mind. But an ache in his back was beginning to make itself felt, and built up until it was no longer ignorable, and Leo, waking, realized he was contorted along a train compartment's wall. He was contorted because Bryony was in his tiny bed.

He reached out and touched her cheek, which was cool to his touch. The sliver of moonlight made her lashes throw long shadows on her smooth skin. Out of desperation with cold, or half-conscious, she must have crossed over to where he was. It was too much to deal with then. Leo gave into his impulse, and pulled her closer to him. He could deal with it in the morning, and find out what Bryony felt about it and all the other thousand questions he could feel bubbling up. But she had come to _him_. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.


End file.
